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Wood stove insert

Snapped-off

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Anyone familiar with or have any recommendations on wood stove fireplace inserts? I'm looking to install one in the living room fireplace. Not familiar with any of the brands. Not trying to supplement the furnace and heat the house with it, but some heat in the room would be nice when a fire is going.
 
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Copymutt

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What ever u decide on, get a written guarantee that if it does not perform it will be replaced or money refunded. It has become common thanks to EPA smothering that newer tech stoves are barely able to support combustion. Wood must be low double digit or single digit moisture content.
 

thammel

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Had a Fisher insert years ago in the family room fireplace (prior house). It was amazing at how much heat it generated. Almost too hot at times.
 

Natty Bumppo

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Savoy, MA
I have been heating my house with an insert for 20 years. Depending on the size you get, they are absolutely capable of heating a house if you wish. I currently have an insert by Pacific Energy. Throws a lot of heat.

When I installed it I completely lined the fire place firebox with rock wool to reduce as much heat loss as I could.

As copymutt already mentioned, new inserts do not seem to blow as hard or as hot due to EPA restrictions on combustion as stoves made back in the 70's 80' and 90's.
 

BillK

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I heated my entire house with an insert for about 5 years. It worked great. Finally got way too busy to be cutting wood so I sold it and turned the thermostat back up.

Depending on the layout of your room I wonder if a small wood burning stove would be better ? They make plates so you can run the chimney into your present chimney. That way you get more radiant heat from the stove and might not even need a blower. Maybe something like this ?

 

Firebrick43

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Stand alone stoves are more efficient and don't need electricity for fans, but set out away from the harth opening. If you go with an insert or stove, and you have a fireplace flue, you need to line it with a 6" or 8" chimney liner insulated with perlite. A fireplace flue is to large, sometime 14x14 square. I have seen several chimney fires due to the smoke column cooling off to drastically and forming large amounts of creosote in the chimney. A chimney fire can burn you house down. Another plus if the chimney is placed right and flue insulated is it drafts well. This keeps smoke from inverting when you start the stove or its fire is dying. I never have a smoke smell in the house and most of my neighbors are suprised when visiting and see the stove going as they don't notice the smoke outside.

Also a smaller stove ran hotter will be more efficient than a larger stove choked off. Modern non catalytic stoves( cat stoves are more for pine/softwoods) need to be operated at a certain temperature to ignite the smoke and burn it. This leads to effiecentcy over 70 percent on better stoves if operated correctly. It also mitigates or eliminates visible smoke
 
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S

Snapped-off

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I heated my entire house with an insert for about 5 years. It worked great. Finally got way too busy to be cutting wood so I sold it and turned the thermostat back up.

Depending on the layout of your room I wonder if a small wood burning stove would be better ? They make plates so you can run the chimney into your present chimney. That way you get more radiant heat from the stove and might not even need a blower. Maybe something like this ?

Not interested in an actual stove. Just wanted to utilize the existing space.

Stand alone stoves are more efficient and don't need electricity for fans, but set out away from the harth opening. If you go with an insert or stove, and you have a fireplace flue, you need to line it with a 6" or 8" chimney liner insulated with perlite. A fireplace flue is to large, sometime 14x14 square. I have seen several chimney fires due to the smoke column cooling off to drastically and forming large amounts of creosote in the chimney. A chimney fire can burn you house down. Another plus if the chimney is placed right and flue insulated is it drafts well. This keeps smoke from inverting when you start the stove or its fire is dying. I never have a smoke smell in the house and most of my neighbors are suprised when visiting and see the stove going as they don't notice the smoke outside.

Also a smaller stove ran hotter will be more efficient than a larger stove choked off. Modern non catalytic stoves( cat stoves are more for pine/softwoods) need to be operated at a certain temperature to ignite the smoke and burn it. This leads to effiecentcy over 70 percent on better stoves if operated correctly. It also mitigates or eliminates visible smoke
I've done the wood furnace thing for 20 years with my dad. I have a gas furnace now though so that's why I'm just looking at inserts.

A chimney liner would definitely be a must. Probably 6". Depends on the stove I guess.

I'm just wanting to blow a little more heat in the room than a plain old fire puts out when we do have one.

Another thing I didn't think of before is having to pull the damned thing out every time I clean the chimney. I'm used to the clean out box at the bottom.
 
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Firebrick43

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Not interested in an actual stove. Just wanted to utilize the existing space.


I've done the wood furnace thing for 20 years with my dad. I have a gas furnace now though so that's why I'm just looking at inserts.

A chimney liner would definitely be a must. Probably 6". Depends on the stove I guess.

I'm just wanting to blow a little more heat in the room than a plain old fire puts out when we do have one.

Another thing I didn't think of before is having to pull the damned thing out every time I clean the chimney. I'm used to the clean out box at the bottom.
We don't pull the stove to clean my dads insert. I have a set of super flexible rods for doing liners, much more flexible than a standard brush rod. Pull the smoke shelf in the stove, place a garbage bag lined cardboard box in the firebox and sweep it. Some times I push a little to far and my dad pulls off the brush so I can pull the rod back out.

The best of fireplaces are under 10 percent efficient. Most actually eject more heat than they put into the house. So an insert will have significantly more heat.
 

Mytoolsupply

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Jan 26, 2022
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Central Ohio
I was talking to a few guys about this same thing the other day, one of them suggested rather than doing the insert putting in one of the ventless gas logs. I haven't done any research on it yet but I like the idea of having the fireplace look and some extra heat.
 

Natty Bumppo

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Savoy, MA
Another thing I didn't think of before is having to pull the damned thing out every time I clean the chimney. I'm used to the clean out box at the bottom.

No need to pull the insert out. All the debris just falls into the insert. If there is any kind of a bend in the liner you might have to get creative to clean up the ash that gets caught there.
 

Denwood

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Sep 22, 2014
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Thunder Bay, Ontario, Canada
EPA stoves are using very simple (but well designed) secondary burn strategies, and some add a catalyst for tertiary burn. Units that have both are referred often as "hybrid" units. In general they burn far less wood, and have higher heat output than a comparable basic wood stove. Once either reaches operating temp, there is pretty much zero smoke. I'd be leaning towards a secondary burn only (they have some extra air/combustion tubes and a baffle at the top of the firebox) for simplicity as you don't have to worry about a catalyst to replace.

That said, the catalyst in these units will generate heat for a very long time (check out some temp/time data on these units!) if you're ok with a bit more tech which is why the hybrid wood burning units are in the 80% efficiency range.

We have been using a Napoleon 60K BTU fireplace for over a decade now. It will easily heat our main floor to 28 C with outside temps at - 25 C. Zero smoke and very low wood use. Ours has an outside combustion air system, but more recent findings are that air requirements of these units are so low (once operating at temp) that outside air is of little to no advantage.

You'll find listings here: https://cfpub.epa.gov/oarweb/woodstove/index.cfm?fuseaction=app.search

Google is your friend: https://www.regency-fire.com/en/Products/Wood/Wood-Inserts

Inserts by their nature will often be smaller to fit in existing firebox spaces, so you'll want one with a fan(s) to move heat out more efficiently. Our fireplace has two blowers (installed after installation) which help speed up heat gain, but we often turn them off as the radiant heat from the unit is quite intense.
 
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Snapped-off

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